The global commercial aviation industry has undergone significant regulatory reform during the last 30
years. This paper explores something of the relationship between air transport liberalization and the
growth of private business aviation and suggests that the sector’s development is largely an unintended
consequence of the increasingly deregulated operating environment in that it has developed to overcome
some of liberalization’s negative impacts, including delays, congestion, and perceptions of poor customer
service. We argue that liberalization has created innovative market opportunities for private business
aviation and illustrate how the sector’s operating models are facilitating new, as yet largely undocumented,
forms of aerial mobility. The paper examines: the advantages of private business aviation over
scheduled services; business strategies in the sector, especially the idea of fractional jets; the impact of
new technologies, particularly the Very Light Jet (VLJ); and, finally, employs Europe as an example of the
spatialities of private business aviation.